Having produced an excellent performance against Ross County on Saturday, a much-changed Buckie Thistle were brought down to earth at East End Park by League One outfit Dunfermline who cruised to their second successive Premier Sports Cup victory.
Rhys Breen’s first half opener was followed by second half strikes from Lewis McCann, Josh Edwards and a double from substitute Nikolay Todorov.
Buckie’s preparation had been thrown into disarray before the game as one of the buses conveying the players to Fife suffered mechanical problems en route, resulting in the kick off being delayed by 15 minutes.
Jags boss Graeme Stewart said: “That was a sobering experience, coming as it did after Saturday’s performance aqgainst Ross County.
“We just weren’t at it tonight. We got found out.
“I can make excuses such as the travelling and the changes to the team but in the end Dunfermline were streets ahead of us.
“They are two divisions above us but out there the gap looked a lot more.
“We were pretty poor in the first half and I made changes in the second half to try to inject some energy into the performance but it didn’t work.
“Some of the goals we lost towards the end were embarrassing – free headers and not matching runners but we just need to learn from it.
“I’ve told the players it wasn’t acceptable.
“We shouldn’t be getting beat 5-0 by anyone and we certainly shouldn’t be getting beat 5-0 by Dunfermline – no disrespect to them.”
Buckie’s travel issues undoubtedly proved to be a factor in the early stages of the game with Dunfermline dominating the opening exchanges.
🚨Delayed Kick Off 🚨
Please note tonight's match will now kick off at 8pm following a break down with the Buckie team bus. pic.twitter.com/R5nl1UY7QW
— Dunfermline Athletic (@officialdafc) July 12, 2022
A mere three minutes had elapsed when Scott Adams cleared a McCann header off the the goal line to prevent the Pars from taking an early lead and as the home side laid siege to the Jags goal.
Goalkeeper Lee Herbert pulled off a heroic save from Paul Allan’s close range effort to keep the scoresheet blank.
Buckie looked to have survived the home side’s initial onslaught but they fell behind when Breen broke the deadlock in the 20th minute, the Dunfermline defender outjumping the Jags defenders to direct a powerful header beyond the reach of Herbert.
Buckie had failed to threaten at that stage but Barry squandered a great chance to level the scores just before the half hour when he chased a long ball out of defence before creating space for himself in the Dunfermline penalty area only to send his shot high and wide of goal.
FT 90+ 1 | #PremierSportsCup | #DAFC 5-0 BTFC |
Match report now online at https://t.co/FdyWqWkyHu#COYP pic.twitter.com/eprlEKGsff— Dunfermline Athletic (@officialdafc) July 12, 2022
Thistle manager Graeme Stewart made three changes at half time but his side fell further behind just five minutes after the restart when McCann headed past Herbert from close range.
Any hopes of a comeback from the Highland League side were scuppered in 62 minutes when Todorov made it 3-0 with a glancing header before firing home his second of the evening shortly afterwards.
Josh Edwards completed the rout with eight minutes remaining.
